Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son got into Yale and felt like it would be too much of a "frat-bro" environment and chose Stanford instead. After spending a weekend at Yale he told me "I feel like I'd accidentally be friends with guys who date rape girls but don't think of themselves as rapists."

DD got into Brown and chose Berkeley instead. Both kids felt like California kids are smart and strive to do well, but without pushing other people out of their way.

That is such completely disgusting and horrible thing to write about Yale.

No it's not. It's how he felt.

Anonymous wrote:I think where you need to target are places that have lots of well raised, auto-didactic kids who also come from lots of wealth so they don't have be 'gunners' because they have a massive safety net that allows them to be 'chill'.

Non-preprofessional, small, lots of wealth are the keys.

This is so true, depressingly. The chill people I know in nice NPR and nonprofit type careers are from astounding wealth.

ND
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Carleton

School’s viewed as “prestigious” will be filled with DCUM types.

The most laid-back, smart, people I know went to “directional” schools. Or, they started at a community college and transferred to XYZ State University. This probably has more to do with not being raised by fussy, Type A, striver parents, than anything else.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of this is about major choice, frankly.

+1 Premed? Very aggressive type. English majors? Not so much.

I was going to say Michigan, but then I forgot about the coastal elite contingent that seems to run the place.

Top midwestern SLACs - Carleton, Grinnell, Kenyon, Macalester

Anonymous wrote:I went to Brown a very long time ago and I'm still a tree-hugger at heart, most of us are. All the CalTech grads I've met have been quirky in a good way and very interesting. I work with a bunch of MIT people and they also fit your description. I hate to generalize but UPenn, especially Wharton, breeds aggressive, loud but lacking substance and depth professionals.

I know you couched with “hate to generalize,” but many people say the same and I think this is an unfair characterization of UPenn, mainly because of the prominence of Wharton (and this may be an unfair characterization of those students, too). Wharton is a relatively small piece of Penn. Two of my kids went to Penn, they both graduated arts & sciences within the past couple of years, and they and their friends are lovely, smart, enthusiastic and engaged young people with diverse interests and from diverse backgrounds. I am sure they also knew some intense and obnoxious students, but every college has those.

A lot of this is about major choice, frankly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top public universities: Michigan, Berkeley, and UCLA. My oldest chose Michigan over Penn and Brown for more or less the reasons OP mentioned. Kids are just as smart and accomplished but there’s less hand-holding, less snootiness and social-climbing pressure, and as far as we can tell, in many industries (outside of the ones for which being extremely wealthy or an Ivy Leaguer are the main qualifications) alumni are equally well regarded.

My concern is those big flagship universities get their top ratings based on their graduate schools. Undergraduate can be a less satisfying experience.

+1

PP omitted UVA which probably has the best undergrad experience out of all the top publics.

A fair number of people seem to think UVA has the a**hole types the OP was asking about, but that may just be typical DCUM stereotyping. Everyone wants to reduce a complex institution like a university to a one word stereotype that fits their perspective or objective. I'll also point out that "undergraduate experience" is highly subjective. Kids are looking for different things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pomona

Not Pomona. Many are very competitive.

Pomona has competitive stat students, but the environment is very friendly and collaborative.

I went to Brown a very long time ago and I'm still a tree-hugger at heart, most of us are. All the CalTech grads I've met have been quirky in a good way and very interesting. I work with a bunch of MIT people and they also fit your description. I hate to generalize but UPenn, especially Wharton, breeds aggressive, loud but lacking substance and depth professionals.

Eh, the world is a competitive place....how long do you plan to shield your precious child from its horrors?

I think where you need to target are places that have lots of well raised, auto-didactic kids who also come from lots of wealth so they don't have be 'gunners' because they have a massive safety net that allows them to be 'chill'.

Non-preprofessional, small, lots of wealth are the keys.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son got into Yale and felt like it would be too much of a "frat-bro" environment and chose Stanford instead. After spending a weekend at Yale he told me "I feel like I'd accidentally be friends with guys who date rape girls but don't think of themselves as rapists."

DD got into Brown and chose Berkeley instead. Both kids felt like California kids are smart and strive to do well, but without pushing other people out of their way.

Silicon Valley is the complete anthesis of this...especially Stanford.

Yeah, my sister teaches at Stanford and said most of her students are tech bros.

What's a tech bro?

Seriously? Hint: It's the college freshman who hit me up on LinkedIn with the "job title" of "Master Coder and Future Venture Capitalist."